The Commission presented a report on the implementation of EU waste legislation for the period 2010-2012.
Of the 27 Member States under the obligation to report, most have submitted replies to the implementation questionnaires for the directives this report covers, namely:
· Directive 2008/98/EC on waste,
· Directive 86/278/EEC on sewage sludge,
· Directive 1999/31/EC on landfilling,
· Directive 94/62/EC on packaging and packaging waste,
· Directive 2002/96/EC on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE),
· Directive 2006/66/EC on batteries and accumulators.
Quality of reporting: not all Member States have fulfilled the obligation laid down in the Directives to report to the Commission on their implementation every three years. Some did not submit replies to the Implementation Questionnaire 2010-2012.
The Commission noted the highly variable nature of the quality and accuracy of the reports and information provided. Answers frequently only referred to national legislation or to answers given in previous reporting periods, without providing further information on the implementation of the directives on the ground, even when this was explicitly requested.
The Commission considered that the triennial implementation reports prepared by the Member States have not proven effective for verifying compliance with the directives, their implementation and their impact.
Directive 2008/98/EC on waste: all Member States had transposed the Directive or were in the process of doing so at the time of reporting.
The main findings of the report are as follows:
· compared to the previous reporting period, municipal waste generation per capita was lower, the landfill of municipal waste had decreased and recycling and incineration with energy recovery had increased. By the end of 2012, at least half of the Member States reached or exceeded the 2020-target of preparing for re-use and recycling 50% of household and similar waste or were well on track to reach them by then;
· 14 Member States reported that they had already reached or exceeded the target of recovering 70% of construction and demolition waste;
· most Member States have published waste prevention programmes and have incorporated the principles of extended producer responsibility, self-sufficiency and proximity and the polluter pays principle;
· there are significant shortcomings in the application of EU waste legislation to waste management in a number of Member States that still largely rely on landfilling of municipal waste. The Commission has developed targeted advice on the implementation of specific measures and the use of European funds to help these Member States improve their waste management.
General conclusions: the Commission considered that Member States should make greater efforts to improve the quality, reliability and comparability of data for assessing waste management performance. They could do this by benchmarking reporting methodologies and introducing a data quality check report, so that when reporting on the achievement of the targets set out in the legislation, Member States use the most recent and harmonised methodology.
The Commission recalled that in the recent review of waste policy and legislation, it proposed to repeal provisions obliging Member States to produce triennial implementation reports and to base compliance monitoring exclusively on quality statistical data that Member States must provide the Commission with annually.